Re: xsd:anyURI - was: HTTPS and the Semantic Web

Hello Henry,

I am glad you agree with me that there is no need for widely deployed URIs to
change. I have no problem with redirects of widely deployed HTTP URIs to
HTTPS as long as it is made clear that using the HTTPS namespace is not OK.

We are talking about privacy and security issues of Semantic Web applications 
with regard to the use of TLS. For me, this is clearly Science Fiction, so we
have some time to fix it. In the meantime, paranoid applications can use
HSTS and preloaded HSTS lists as a temporary workaround.

In the long run, this should be fixed on a lower layer and there is already 
work underway to enable publishing "TLS required" preferences via DNSSEC:
https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-hallambaker-esrv-01

So I actually see no case for a namespace change even for less known
vocabularies. Anyway, there is already owl:sameAs and a property to express a 
preferred namespace. Naturally, the latter is meant for human consumers.
What whould be the automated consequences of ex:canonical/ex:preferreduri? 
Would app developers care about it?

Regards,

Michael Brunnbauer

On Sat, May 21, 2016 at 06:13:20PM +0200, Henry Story wrote:
> 
> > On 21 May 2016, at 17:40, Michael Brunnbauer <brunni@netestate.de> wrote:
> > 
> > 
> > Hello Henry,
> > 
> > On Sat, May 21, 2016 at 04:18:47PM +0200, Henry Story wrote:
> >> We should see this large movement as an opportunity to fix a lot of other problems that have come
> >> up in Linked Data. For example it could allow us to move away from 303 redirects to hash urls that are much 
> >> more efficient, and finally put that old discussion to rest.
> > 
> > Ha! Let the games begin! :-)
> > 
> > Seriously, I cannot believe we are having this discussion. The day that that "a"
> > in Turtle/SPARQL represents https://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#type
> > instead of http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#type will be the day
> > when RDF breaks. Leave it as it is.
> 
> clearly some RDF URLS are so widely documented and deployed that these meanings 
> have to a certain extend escaped from the definition placed at their location. 
> As a result they won't gain much in security by having https urls. This would
> be the case for many major w3c rdf and owl URLS. So I don't think there is really
> a need to move those URLs over.
> 
> > All those URI changing fixes to get rid of technical debt will mean a lot of 
> > pain for a lot of people - unless you can come up with a scheme where those 
> > fixes are handled transparently by the software. I am not talking of reasoners
> > here.
> 
> You mean like using redirects? That would allow ontologies to be moved to secure 
> namespaces without I think changing the old URLs.
> 
> I think there are ways of doing these redirects securely. I have not looked at that 
> carefully. Anyone?
> 
> > A large fraction of the users don't use them because they are a PITA.
> > RDF should stay accessible for people who are not top of the range and use 
> > hard-coded URIs in their code.
> 
> yes, there will be quite a long time to live for old well known http URLs. On the
> other hand for people building less well known vocabs who want to move to more
> secure vocabs you'll need some "reasoning type solution" like the one we're starting 
> to propose. In any case that will be needed for changing ontologies, and overcomeing
> mistakes, etc... So there is good reason to formalise vocabulary transitions, so that
> these can be automated.
> 
> > Maybe we can come up with a completely new RDF where "Cool URIs don't change"
> > is enforced technically? ;-)
> 
> Things change. "Cool URIs' don't change" is of motto so that people think before they
> change URIs, because of the cost involved which we are just discussin.
> It's not a statement about the impossibility to make mistakes.
> 
> Henry
> 
> > 
> > Regards,
> > 
> > Michael Brunnbauer
> > 
> > -- 
> > ++  Michael Brunnbauer
> > ++  netEstate GmbH
> > ++  Geisenhausener Straße 11a
> > ++  81379 München
> > ++  Tel +49 89 32 19 77 80
> > ++  Fax +49 89 32 19 77 89 
> > ++  E-Mail brunni@netestate.de
> > ++  http://www.netestate.de/
> > ++
> > ++  Sitz: München, HRB Nr.142452 (Handelsregister B München)
> > ++  USt-IdNr. DE221033342
> > ++  Geschäftsführer: Michael Brunnbauer, Franz Brunnbauer
> > ++  Prokurist: Dipl. Kfm. (Univ.) Markus Hendel
> 

-- 
++  Michael Brunnbauer
++  netEstate GmbH
++  Geisenhausener Straße 11a
++  81379 München
++  Tel +49 89 32 19 77 80
++  Fax +49 89 32 19 77 89 
++  E-Mail brunni@netestate.de
++  http://www.netestate.de/
++
++  Sitz: München, HRB Nr.142452 (Handelsregister B München)
++  USt-IdNr. DE221033342
++  Geschäftsführer: Michael Brunnbauer, Franz Brunnbauer
++  Prokurist: Dipl. Kfm. (Univ.) Markus Hendel